Why the best founders are never in a hurry

In my day-to-day work, I speak to a lot of founders – old and young, with varying degrees of experience and background. I think it’s possible to cluster them into 2 groups: the frazzled ones and the collected ones. 

One of my discovery calls last week exemplified the “frazzled” archetype perfectly: we had set a 25-minute meeting for 14:15; he shows up five minutes late and tells me he only has ten minutes. During the call, I could tell that he was mentally already in the next call. Needless to say, that call didn’t go anywhere – for me or for him. 

A few months ago, I also spoke to a founder of a 120+ people company, who just raised a significant Series B. This guy – who clearly has more s**t on his plate – showed up on time, took the full 25 minutes, and was fully present during the entire time. He listened intently, asked the right questions, made snap decisions. He was collected. (And this vibe oozes throughout the rest of the organization, too.) 

Age-wise and experience-wise, those guys aren’t very far apart, maybe 2-3 years. The difference wasn’t workload, intelligence, or ambition either. 

I wanna try to draw an analogy to sports here.

The best defenders I’ve played Lacrosse with are never in a hurry. They always know what’s happening on the field, both in front of them and behind them. They have urgency when necessary (eg. when time is short in the quarter), but otherwise, have a deliberately calm and collected pace. 

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. 

Newer players on the field, on the other hand, have their heads spinning. They can’t follow the ball. They lose track of the man they’re supposed to guard. They forget to communicate. 

I know this, because I regularly make all those mistakes on the field. 

And founders under pressure behave exactly like the newer players on the field. 

So what do collected founders and experienced defenders do differently?

They try to do less. 

So they can focus on the things that truly matter. 

The best defensive players don’t run around like headless chickens; they move less to ensure they’re always in the right position.

They know what their job is, and communicate to others – both what they’re doing themselves, and what they need the other players to do. 

The “collected” founders are similar: they don’t try to do all the things; they do whatever’s truly important in the moment. 

It’s easy of falling into the trap of just doing more. (Especially if you listen to the likes of Alex Hormozi.) 

Yes, hard work is important, there’s no way around it. But at some point, you can’t just brute force your way through life anymore – you need to decide what truly moves the lever, and AED everything else. (AED? Keep reading.) 

I’ve been on both sides, in both disciplines (as a Lacrosse defender, and as a founder) – frazzled, and collected.

Over time, I’ve realized that collectedness isn’t a personality trait. It’s a system. One you can practice, and put into a framework. 

This is the framework I use to ensure I’m more on the collected and less on the frazzled side. 

1. Set priorities by using deep sparring 
2. Identify what things you can do and AED everything else 
3. Establish rituals for mental clarity 
4. Close open loops 

Let’s take a look: 

1 – Set priorities using deep sparring

“Deep Work is overpriced”, George Mack says on the Modern Wisdom podcast while I’m fighting through my last intervals on the Assault Bike. “People believe that sitting down in silence and working through stuff is the answer to everything. It’s useful – but deep sparring is underpriced.” (Paraphrased, quoting transcripts directly makes for bad written content.)

Deep sparring is that you get together with 1-2 others, work through your issues, and get input on what’s most important for you right now. Focus on only that for a few hours. 

Consider this tweet: 

When I’m setting priorities for the business and myself, I always run them by a few friends that I trust to get their input. (I’ve also trained a project on ChatGPT to spar with me.) 

This gives me ultimate clarity on what to focus on next – and what to AED. 

2 – The AED Framework

AED is the newer version of the Eisenhower Matrix. Pick out the things that move the needle the most; everything else: 

• Automate – find ways to have computers & agents do the work for you; you’d be surprised how many things you can still automate using the ever-increasing stack of AI tools.
• Eliminate – just because it’s on your to-do list, it doesn’t necessarily need to be done. At Generalyst, I created short-form summaries for every candidate accepted into the program; now, I only do this for candidates whose profiles I’m sharing with companies (which means creating 25% less profiles). 
• Delegate – if you can’t automate or eliminate it, get someone else to do it for you. (Shameless plug here: that’s one good reason to hire a Founder’s Associate.)

Once a month, I track everything I do on a given day, and then assess which of these things I need to do, and which I can AED. Sometimes, I don’t have anyone to delegate to, so I note that down for a potential future job description. Or my FA gets a task to automate something – at which she’s arguably better than I am. 

AED isn’t about working less, it’s about working where your attention has a compounding effect. 

3 – Establish Rituals for Mental Clarity

Your brain is a computer. Computers run hot when there’s too much stuff in their RAM (Random Access Memory) – too many tabs open, too many processes running at the same time. If you want your computer to speed up, you first gotta clear out the RAM. 

Same goes for your brain: if there’s too much stuff cluttering it, you won’t be able to think clearly. So once, sometimes twice a week, I write a brain dump. 

It' literally just an Apple Note where I write down everything that’s currently in my brain. Journaling works similarly – except that it’s less of a dumping mechanism and more of a thinking mechanism, since the act of writing by hand forces you to articulate your thoughts. 

So whenever you feel frazzled, just open a note, take 20 minutes, and write down everything. Doesn’t need to be pretty, just needs to be functional. 

4 – Close Open Loops

Once you’ve done your brain dump, you’ll see a ton of open loops. Need to return package. Schedule lunch with friend. Clear out schedule for Thursday next week. Stuff like that. 

Close them rigorously, ideally right now. If you can’t, put them into your task management system, set a deadline, and go on your way. This act is so cathartic, I don’t even know how to describe it. But when you realize there are currently no open loops running … man, it feels good. 

And with this, you’ve regained a lot of clarity. 

This process reminds me of a quote often attributed to Abraham Lincoln:

“If I had six hours to cut down a tree, I’d spend the first four sharpening the axe.” 

Most of us work mindlessly, simply on the next task. That’s chopping down the tree. 

But when you really wanna get rolling, you set priorities, identify high-leverage activities, and plan for those. That’s sharpening the axe. 

Time to work on your clarity is time well invested. 

And with that, ladies and gentlemen, we’ll close out this newsletter for the week. 

Happy Monday. Have a wonderful, productive, focused week. 

LFG. 🔥

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